


Flicker and Crack

by NoLongerInThisFandom (write_away)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, M/M, Non-graphic violence and torture, off-screen violence and torture, this is angst, this is the angst of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_away/pseuds/NoLongerInThisFandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The crack of flesh on flesh echoes and rings, but Carlos barely hears it. His head is spinning and he tries to raise a hand to soothe the hot mark on his cheek, but finds it bound to a post above him. He forces his eyes to open to the dark room, if only to blink away the tears that sprung against his will.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Fuck,” he mutters and spits out blood. He can’t see a thing, but he can feel movement around him. There’s no way of knowing how many are there, but their presence is nearly tangible, crawling and pinching at his senses.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“We would appreciate it if you could refrain from vulgarity while in Secret Police custody.” </i></p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, there's nothing you can do but let your life flicker and burn in front of you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flicker and Crack

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. Night Vale just opens itself up for too many angst possibilities. Enjoy!

Carlos can feel the cold creep of humiliation bubble up to his burning skin, but he can’t bring himself to escape the cruel gazes or the unforgiving sun that glare down on him. His palms and knees still sting from his fall, and the foot in the middle of his back presses his entire body against the hot desert dirt until all he can feel is the vague uncomfortableness of pain as his mind desperately disconnects. His shoulders ache and throb as the Secret Police Officer wrenches them back and binds his wrists together with illegal duct tape stolen from his own lab.

“Please,” the officer says pleasantly as he drags Carlos upright with a handful of hair. “Scream as much as you’d like. Your silence can and will be used as an indicator of guilt.”

But Carlos can’t bring himself to scream. His throat is too dry to even muster a whimper. His tongue is a weight of words never said, and, somehow, the desert air tastes like the sweet candies he used to steal from the bowl on the kitchen table when he was young.

“I don’t know what I’ve done,” he manages to croak under another officer’s insistent stare, but nobody seems to care. “What law did I break?”

His face is pushed back against the rocky earth with a rough hand on the back of his neck. He can smell the metallic tang of blood, but the only thing he can taste is that sickly sweet scent growing stronger and stronger until his mind reconnects and there is only pain and darkness.

* * *

 

Carlos is woken by a gentle touch to his cheek.

The hand is soft – unfamiliar, but comforting. It strokes his skin carefully with its thumb, rubbing little circles the way his mother used to when he woke from nightmares. He can hear quiet crooning, almost like a lullaby, a happy tune, but his head is too foggy and heavy to register what’s being said. His body feels like it’s been ripped apart and then pieced back together again, every joint sore and every muscle stiff with agony. He leans into the touch instinctively, the only movement he thinks himself capable of at the moment.

The hand disappears for a split second and returns with a terrible smack.

The crack of flesh on flesh echoes and rings, but Carlos barely hears it. His head is spinning and he tries to raise a hand to soothe the hot mark on his cheek, but finds it bound to a post above him. He forces his eyes to open to the dark room, if only to blink away the tears that sprung against his will.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he mutters and spits out blood. He can’t see a thing, but he can feel movement around him. There’s no way of knowing how many are there, but their presence is nearly tangible, crawling and pinching at his senses.

“We would appreciate it if you could refrain from vulgarity while in Secret Police custody.”

Carlos wants to curse again, because he’s not dumb enough to try a physical fight when he can’t move or see, but bites back the urge. There’s no telling what consequences there are to suffer, and rumors have it that cooperation can sometimes lead to freedom when it comes to dealing with Night Vale’s police force.

Anyway, all he needs to do is buy himself time. Once Cecil knows he’s been taken, he’s sure to pull all the strings to get him out. There are benefits to being mutually in love with one of the most powerful citizens.

“Please state your name for our records,” the same voice requests. Cecil doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but it seems to fill the whole room, low and raspy and thrumming with dangerous intentions.

Carlos gulps and struggles to forms words with a mouth he’s not sure will cooperate. “Carlos Belmonte.” Silence follows. “I, um. I’m a scientist? I work in Night Vale? I – I study it. I’m – I’m twenty-eight. I have a –”

There’s a crack from somewhere in the room.           

Carlos flinches, but lets out a breath of relief when no pain hits him.

“We asked your name,” the voice says, clearly unsatisfied. “You will do better to follow orders from now on or consequences will be dire.”

Carlos nods into the darkness, mouth dry.

“You are being investigated under the claim that you have acquired illegal information concerning Night Vale,” the voice goes on to explain. “You will be held for an indeterminate period of time. You will be subject to interrogation. Your family and friends within Night Vale have been notified and told to forget about you existence. You have been stripped of your rights for as long as you are within our custody. Is this understood?”

He nods again.

“We are going to give you something to temporarily ease the pain.”

Someone holds a cup of bitter, sticky liquid to his mouth and forces him to drink, tilting his head back until the cup is empty. His throat is coated, and it clings to his lips even after he licks it away. It tastes like despair and fire, but the aching goes numb almost instantly and he relaxes like gelatin in his bonds. Someone is untying him and setting him on cold concrete with careful touches.

“In a few moments, the pain shall return tenfold. We shall return when the medication has worn off.”

Alarm strikes Carlos as an unseen door shuts and the presences disappear, so the only prickling he feels is internal, like needles stabbing from his veins into his skin, like they’re on fire, like they’re going to rip him apart from the inside, and it splits him apart, and the pain is indescribable, and he vaguely thinks he’s writhing, but he doesn’t know because his body doesn’t feel there.

Somehow, he doesn’t black out.

He wishes he would.

* * *

 

Eventually, the pain fades to a sharp ache in his bones and Carlos is able to examine his surroundings. The room is still too dark to see even directly in front of him, but he’s not a very good scientist if he can only use his eyes to observe. With one heave of energy and a great deal of biting back screams, he rolls onto his stomach and pushes up to his hands and knees.

The ground is cold – freezing, in fact, and he shivers as it bleeds through his torn trousers to shock his legs and arms – but it seems to be clean, devoid of anything except his own sweat and what he thinks might be blood. He can’t tell if he’s bleeding anywhere, but it wouldn’t be a surprise. He manages to crawl until he hits a wall, cold and concrete like the floor, but sturdy enough for him to lean on. He lowers himself slowly against it and curls his knees as close to his chest as he can, struggling to find warmth for the first time since he moved to this godforsaken desert.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knows, there’s another sharp _crack_ against his cheek and he startles awake, his vision suddenly flooded with too much light. It burns, and he shuts his eyes instantly, shielding his head with his arms from the man in the black uniform and the bright, bright light that seems to be everywhere but coming from nowhere.

“You were not given permission to sleep, prisoner,” the officer chides, but it’s without hatred or venom. Simply a reminder that Carlos is no longer himself. “I will dim the lights, but you must look up.”

Tentatively, Carlos obeys, squinting through his hands into the much dimmer room. It’s larger than he thought it was, and a large bed sits in the middle. The mattress is stripped bare and stained with various colors that Carlos doesn’t want to think of, bolding displaying long scratches down the side and top where springs and fluff poke out. A television is mounted on the wall, its screen crackling static. Otherwise, the room is empty.

“Thank you,” the officer says and offers his gloved hand with a smile.

Carlos takes it and lets himself be hauled to his feet. “I don’t understand what I’ve done,” he admits as he lets the officer bind his wrists together behind his back. He just has to behave until Cecil can get him out, he reasons, but that doesn’t mean he can’t look for answers. “I don’t know what illegal information I’ve acquired. I just – I just do my stupid experiments on – on trees. And stuff.”

“I know,” the officer says and presses his hand against Carlos’s back, leading him to the metal door on the other side of the room. “Cecil talks about your work frequently.”

Carlos can’t help but blush. “He’s very impressed.”

“We all are. You are an excellent scientist. Very prestigious,” he replies. Carlos can hear the honesty in his words, the sincerity and kindness, even as he pauses to tie a blindfold over his eyes, returning him to the darkness he’s not sure he prefers.

“Then why are you imprisoning me?”

Almost silence buzzes. “If you don’t know already, you are better off never knowing.”

Carlos knows, but he’s not about to admit that now.

* * *

“What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“What information have you uncovered about Night Vale?” 

“I… I’ve uncovered a lot about Night Vale in my time here. I’m not sure what information you mean.” 

“Yes, you do. Begin speaking now.”

* * *

Carlos isn’t sure how long he’s been imprisoned, but by now, he’s beginning to wonder exactly what Cecil was told about his disappearance. Perhaps he was told that he was visiting family. Perhaps he wasn’t told at all.

Perhaps he was told that Carlos was leaving him and never coming back.

Of all the pain they put him through, that idea hurts most.

His days never change, and he finds himself falling into the monotony of torture quite easily, perhaps even willingly. He sleeps on the stained mattress, careful to avoid the broken coils that scratch him until his legs look more like scratching posts. He showers under the broken faucet with freezing water until he’s shaking and shivering and begging for them to turn it off before he gets hypothermia. He eats whatever is put in front of him, even when he’s not sure it’s food. He walks cooperatively to the torture chamber and endures interrogations where he usually doesn’t know the answers, and even when he does, he’ll never tell them he knows.

He doesn’t always remember the torture, but whether that’s his own mind blocking it out or one of their methods of poking in his head, he can’t be sure. But on days where there isn’t pain, days where they leave him be in his cell, days where the television works for more than thirty seconds, he’s more frightened than anything else.

If he can’t rely on his captors torturing him, he’s not sure what he can rely on at all.

He knows that’s not healthy. He knows that’s not right. But he’s beginning to lose hope that Cecil will ever save him, and if that’s the case, he needs to either become content in this life or find a way out.

He’s pretty sure there isn’t one.

* * *

“What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?”

“Nothing of importance.”

“Do not lie. What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?”

“I don’t know anything.” 

“I see you are uncooperative today. Take the prisoner to the second torture chamber and administer punishment until he loses consciousness. Do not let that happen quickly.”

* * *

Carlos knows he shouldn’t give up hope so easily, but honestly, he thinks it might be simpler to remain in secret police custody for the rest of his life than to escape and have to flee from the town that’s become his home, to leave them to their own devices when he knows things that could save them. At least this gives him an excuse to keep his mouth shut.

And it’s not like his guards haven’t started to become fond of him. His main guard – Richard is his name - smiles and pats him on the back, sometimes brings extra water, and once a bottle of vodka that hadn’t lasted the night. Some others slip him books and magazines and once, just once, someone left their radio on a little too loud while he stood facing the wall during headcount and he heard Cecil’s voice.

He couldn’t stop grinning for the rest of the night.

He thinks he’s been imprisoned for about a month when he wakes with an itchy blanket wrapped around his body, holey but warm, and a mug of coffee just the way he likes it set on the floor beside the bed. He drinks about half of it, curled up in bed with a torn copy of _1984_ when it hits him that he’s beginning to make a home out of this hell.

Maybe it’s from the painkillers someone slipped him the night before, or the fact that he’s developing Stockholm Syndrome, or the fact that he’s just fucked and there’s no way around that fact, he doesn’t know, but he starts laughing, his body convulsing and shaking with it until tears leak down his cheeks, and suddenly, he’s not laughing anymore but sobbing, hysterically, uncontrollably, and his chest hurts more than any of the cuts and scrapes and welts and other damages he’s procured over the weeks.

Richard comes in and takes the mug from his hands before he can throw it, slips a little white pill into his mouth and forces him to swallow it, and then sits with him until sleep takes over again, drifting him away to the nightmares that are so much better than the fears that everyone, even Cecil, has forgotten about him.

* * *

“What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?”

“Well, the trees in the Whispering Forest are very kind. They like poetry and company.” 

 _Crack_.

“What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?”

“I – uh – was studying the seismological vibrations in the ground and the town should have been decimated – ah – months ago.”

 _Crack_.

“What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?”

“Time doesn’t – _ah!_ ”

_Crackcrackcrackcrackcrack._

“You are giving us information already submitted in your official reports. Do we need to start breaking bones?" 

“ _Ah – ow –_ no – I – _please._ ”

“It would be a shame, since your fingers have only just healed from last time.”

“Please – I’ve reported everything I’ve learned – I don’t know what – _ah!_ _Please stop, please stop, please please please, I –”_

“What do you know?”

“Nothing, I know nothing, I – please – I know nothing.”

  _CRACK_.

“Do not lie.”

“I know nothing, I know nothing, I know nothing, I –”

“Prisoner does not seem to be cooperative today. Take him back to his cell. Don’t bother tending to him yet – I’ll be by to administer the rest of the flogging once I finish my other interrogations.”

“I know nothing, I know nothing, I know nothing, I know nothing, I know –”

“Take him away, he’s beginning to babble again.”

* * *

Once a week, a guard delivers a small card and a sharp knife. The card says the same thing every time.

_Please rate your prison experience on a scale of comfortable to ‘Would Prefer Death.’ Your feedback is appreciated, necessary, and mandatory._

Carlos pricks his index finger, marks the same square – traumatizing – and signs his name with the blood. He wouldn’t risk asking for a pen. He’s already suffered all his minor infractions, like possession and use of a writing utensil, and some of his more major ones, such as ingestion of wheat and wheat-by-products.

The guard thanks him, hands him a tissue to staunch the bleeding, and takes both the card and knife away.

* * *

“What information have you gleaned from Night Vale?”

“Nothing.”

“Lies. We have seen your files, your observations and recordings. You know something." 

“If you have my reports, why do you need me to tell you?”

_Crack!_

“Because they are unclear. We must be clear on what exactly you know and understand so we can properly remove it from your mind.”

“You’re not touching my fucking brain.”

_Crack!_

“You have been warned several times about vulgarity under police custody.”

“ _You’re not touching my brain_.”

_Crack!_

“I don’t believe the prisoner has experienced re-education at our fine facility yet. See to it that he does.”

* * *

Richard is cleaning his gun in Carlos’s cell in a rare afternoon of quiet companionship. Carlos, still recovering from the shocks that had been administered the night before, almost doesn’t hear him when he speaks.

“They’re getting tired of this, you know.”

Carlos doesn’t respond. He knows better than anyone else that their patience is dwindling quickly.

“If you don’t begin to behave, they’re going to hurt you worse.”

His muscles still tingle with electricity. He idly wonders what he would do if he could shoot the remnants of it out of his hands, or maybe his eyes.

“Or people you love.”

He hasn’t seen Cecil in more than three months. His assistants have probably fled town or died. His family disowned him when he brought his first boyfriend home. Funny, he ponders, that he doesn’t even remember the other boy’s name anymore.

“You should cooperate.”

“I don’t want to hurt you all,” is all Carlos can say, because he won’t, he can’t, he cares too much about this goddamn town’s happiness to endanger that even if it means they’ll be a lot worse off. “Do you think they’ll kill me?”

Richard has to think it over, it seems, because it goes silent for a moment. “Worse,” he finally decides.

Carlos hums. “Do I get a last request?”

Richard smiles knowingly. “No. Maybe it’ll get fulfilled anyway.”

* * *

“What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?”

“ _Please – stop – I can’t – you’re k-k-killing me, p-please._ ”

“Please answer the question coherently.”

“Fuck you, fuck this fucking hell, fuck you all.”

 _Crack_.

“Please refrain from vulgarity.”

“Just fucking kill me already, please stop toying with my fucking mind, I don’t know anything so stop, just fucking stop, _please_.”

“Take the prisoner back to his cell. That will be all for today.”

* * *

Carlos is woken by a gentle touch to his cheek.

It’s soft, familiar though distant, and smells vaguely of cinnamon and peppermint, a scent that pangs in his chest though he can’t remember why. He smiles and curls into his blanket further, unwilling to open his eyes until a whip comes down on him, unwilling to end this dream until he has to.

“My sweet, perfect Carlos. Look what they’ve done to you.”

Carlos’s eyes snap open and he scrambles away from the touch, unsure of what he’s feeling, hearing, smelling, _seeing._  It wouldn’t be the first time his captors have induced hallucinations, though it would be the kindest one he’s received so far.

And yet, it looks so real that he can’t stop himself from reaching out to stroke the other man’s cheek, to feel the warmth, to wonder if it’s real.

“Cecil?” he asks, afraid to be wrong, afraid that he’ll evaporate into thin air.

The other man smiles, perched on the edge of the mattress as if it’s a normal Sunday morning. “Of course,” he says, sounding a bit offended. “Who else?”

And then the very little fight Carlos has left seeps out of his body into a puddle at his feet and he lurches forward, throwing his arms around Cecil and vowing to never let go.

Cecil chuckles a bit and embraces him, stroking a soothing pattern into his back. “Hush, hush,” he says and Carlos realizes that he’s crying, leaving ugly tear stains on Cecil’s neon purple tie. “I’m here, you’re going to be okay.”

Carlos doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t say that, he just holds on tighter until the shaking stops and his head starts to hurt and he doesn’t hear half of what Cecil murmurs to him, but the half that he does hear is horrifying and terrible, so he just tries to ignore it and fall asleep in his arms for the first time in seven months.

When he wakes up, Cecil is gone, but the tie is wrapped around his wrist and a new copy of _Brave New World_ is tucked under his pillow.

 

* * *

“What information have you gleaned from Night Vale?”

“My boyfriend reported me to the Sheriff’s Secret Police.”

“Your personal life is not our concern.”

“My boyfriend is _part_ of the Sheriff’s Secret Police.”

“Cecil has been an outstanding member of our force for many years now. You should be proud. However, this is not our area of concern. What information have you gleaned from Night Vale?”

“I – I don’t know. I’m very confused right now.”

“Very well. Take the prisoner back to his cell. The visit seems to have had a negative effect on him. Take a reprieve from shock punishments and re-education. His comprehension skills seem to be deteriorating and we haven’t gotten our information yet.”

* * *

Despite everything, Carlos wants to see Cecil again. He wants to return to Night Vale. He wants his normal life back, if life in Night Vale could ever be normal at all.

* * *

“This is your last interrogation session.” 

“Why?”

“You have proven yourself worthless to us. If you are unwilling to share information, you will simply die. I don’t suppose you want to die.”

“If I don’t die, what will you do to me?”

“That’s classified information that you do not need to know.”

“Will I go back to Night Vale?”

“That’s classified information you don’t need to know.”

“Is Night Vale still there?”

“What information have you gleaned about Night Vale?” 

“I – I don’t want to tell you.”

 _Crack_.

“You have indicated possession of knowledge. Share.”

“I can’t, please, don’t make me do this, I – it’s not fair.”

“What information have you gleaned from Night Vale?”

* * *

 

 

Carlos spends his last day in captivity curled up on his stained, torn mattress with a battered copy of _Clockwork Orange_ and a mug of coffee the way he likes it, the poison almost entirely masked. Richard lets him listen to Cecil’s radio show one last time and hearing the man’s voice is a comfort in spite of the betrayal. The thought hardly stings anymore, anyway.

“Richard?” he calls out quietly during the weather. He knows the man is on the other side of the metal door, and sure enough, it opens not a moment later.

“If you feel any heaviness in your limbs, I’ve been told that’s expected.”

Carlos shakes his head and takes a larger sip of his drink. “No, no, that’s not it,” he says though his legs feel like bricks, numb and useless logs attached to his body. “I just – wanted to warned you.”

“About what?” Richard has a kind smile, if a little wary.

It takes Carlos a moment to remember – his mind feels foggy and fuzzy and unclear – but when it does, the words tumble out. “What I know. What I learned about Night Vale.”

Richard shakes his head, sighing. “It’s too late now, Carlos.”

Carlos knows that. He doesn’t care. “It’s about the figures –”

Richard shuts the door.

Everything feels far away and close, cold and hot, numb and full of agony, and Carlos can’t do anything but lie back and embrace it. The words of the book start to blur and blend together until he has to put it down.

The poison tastes a little like the candies he used to steal from the bowl on the kitchen table when he was young.

The last thing he hears is _“Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.”_

 

            

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Carlos's last name (Belmonte) means "beautiful mountain" in Spanish and Italian. Now that's another fic in the works! (A fluffy one, I swear).
> 
> Fun fact 2: 1984 and Clockwork Orange are both dystopian novels that feature worlds that torture the protagonist and rule with fear. Brave New World is a dystopian novel where the people are rued by overwhelming happiness and ignorance. I thought Cecil might think Carlos would find that comforting.
> 
> Fun fact 3: I just really love the idea of SSP Cecil, I'm sorry, this is the second time I've done this, whoops.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Feedback is wonderful and encouraged by the City Council.


End file.
